Newburgh school district reorganizes to help boost efficiency

Tuesday

Jul 30, 2013 at 2:00 AM

NEWBURGH — As the Newburgh school district continues to try to close its $1.9 million budget gap, its top administrators and school board members have dedicated part of the summer to yet another big project — reorganization.

Pauline Liu

NEWBURGH — As the Newburgh school district continues to try to close its $1.9 million budget gap, its top administrators and school board members have dedicated part of the summer to yet another big project — reorganization.

The project involves shuffling administrators and appointing new supervisors within the district in an effort to improve efficiency.

The administration said it found that the district had a shortage of mid-level managers and planned to fill some vacancies by promoting teachers.

At last Thursday's special Board of Education meeting, board members unanimously approved new appointments and job titles for a few administrators and five teachers.

David Noriega was the executive director of bilingual/ESL education and community affairs, but that position has been eliminated; he is now supervisor of registration and extended year/extended day programs. Heritage Middle School teacher Martha Young was among the five teachers appointed as instructional coaches. They will help train other teachers.

So far, about a dozen teachers have been promoted to supervisory roles in the areas of special education, humanities and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Newburgh school Superintendent Ralph Pizzo said there may be a few more appointments.

Since the district is still struggling to make ends meet, Pizzo wanted to make clear that reorganization would not result in "any additional cost and is not going to affect the general fund."

In the past, raises for some administrators have led to sparring between the district and the Newburgh Teachers' Association. Now the teachers' union is taking a wait-and-see approach.

"We have to see if that's true — that it won't affect the general fund — when we get the entire thing," said Art Plichta, teachers' union president.

The administration is expected to make a presentation on the reorganization during a school board meeting at 7 p.m. Aug. 29 at the school district main office.

As for the costs of the reorganization, Pizzo said that "it's a wash."

"Some people received raises, but we also promoted some into entry-level (management) positions at a lower rate," Pizzo said.

pliu@th-record.com

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